Tour de Fleece Day 16

Today was bath day, and not just for Henrietta - who is still not a giant fan of them, but now only glares instead of making noises like she's being murdered


poor soggy little thing

The yarn I finished spinning yesterday got a dunk too, it looks so pretty like this!



Now I have 47 yards of singles yarn hanging to dry. 




Today I started spinning the Corriedale I bought from HiFiber Kits when I first got my spindle. For the first ply the silver fox is the main color, and I'm mixing in small amounts of the eggplant as I go. The second ply I plan to do the reverse.  I wanted something a little different than the straight barber pole of plying a gray and a purple strand...at least I hope this will turn out well, I'm really just experimenting at this point.



Tonight I'm going to knit on my mystery toy some more, and hope to get the ears finished. Maybe I'll have a new progress photo to share tomorrow.

Uuuuugh The Heat, Hedgie Wakeup Call, oh yeah and tour de fleece day 13

I am SOOOOOOO tired of the hot. So Very Tired.

Now I know you would be fully within your rights to point out that I, the heat hater, moved to the desert, full of heat, like a big dumb idiot. 
BUT I urge you to keep in mind that I would be within my rights to squirt you directly in the face with the spray bottle I've taken to keeping in the fridge. Repeatedly. At close range. 
So maybe you could just not point out the obvious, and deal with a few days of my whining until the temp finally drops? At least until the highs drop below 100? Please?

I did finally give up a little this afternoon. Power bills be damned, I've got both the little window AC units going nonstop along with the ceiling fans and have strategically placed our one standing fan so we have air circulating through the main rooms (I've given up on the kitchen/dining and the craft room) 

Since the spot where Henrietta originally was ended up being too hot, I had already moved her setup. After today that put it directly in front of the fan pushing the AC out, so I worried she would get too cold (even my Hedgie has first world problems) That meant it was time to move her again, but in the middle of the day, when all the good hedgies are meant to be sleeping. Now she is in the cool but not too cold range, and happy. During the move though? I tried to wake her up nicely, because I know from experience she likes being startled awake even less than I do. She was not a happy camper.

Because I'm a meanie with a camera, here are the stages of Princess Pricklebottom's wake up


From balled up asleep so sweet, to the evil glare of "WTF is going on!?"

To the feigned indifference of "I'll ignore you until you put me back down to sleep" and then the stink eyed glare of "Who are you and why are you bothering me??"

~

Then finally she is awake enough to realize I'm talking to her, and "Oh hey! I do know you!" quickly turns to "Let's play! Let's explore! I smell a treat! And a new table!!"

And off she wandered to explore, until she turned sleepy once more (it was the middle of the day after all). 

~

Now she is back into her newly relocated home and snuggled up in her fleece filled plastic igloo, happy as can be.

I'm a bit happier now too, because at least two of our rooms are at 75. I'll be less happy when the bill for the power comes next month, but if I turned into a homicidal grumpasaurus from overheating, I'm pretty sure that would be more costly in the long run.

~

I managed to get a bit more spinning done too, but not all that much. And not that thin either. 

The lone bad side effect of the fans moving the air was that all the floaty fiber bits were a little harder to manage, but it's okay. I've decided instead of trying to ply this batch when I'm done, I'll just add it to the singles I spun at the tour's beginning for my cup cozy. I was needing more yardage anyway.

TDF Day 12

Today I've got a serious case of the grumps, and I think it's 91% to blame on the heat. I'm just not made well to deal with it. Blerg. 

Suprise surprise - feeling hot, sticky, tired and irritable is not actually a good combination when spinning. Like I said, surprise surprise. 

I gave it a good effort, but after realizing I was getting more thick and thin spots instead of less (and dropping my spindle twice, the bad drop where you drop it fiber and all) I decided to call it a day. 

Here's my sad sad little progress

Just reminding myself that (unlike the Tour itself) spinning is not a race and that I can try to do better tomorrow. It's better to slow down and get the results I want, than to try and power through.

Instead I spend the rest of my afternoon playing with our herd. I know I said this blog was for my crafty stuff, but surely a couple more animal pictures won't bring the Internet crashing down...will it?
I suppose I could be kind and put it behind a cut...if only I knew how to do that from the iPad. No cool icon button thing like when I use the laptop.

Sadly, Charlotte seemed more interested in laying in the sunny spot of the room than playing. Like it isn't not enough, without sitting directly in the sun.

She is clearly deranged.

Sadie played fetch for awhile, but then turned her attention back the Henrietta. The Hedgie gets over half her attention these days, since she's new.

This picture is from the other day, but Sadie does basically the same sit and stare every time Henrietta is out.
SO MUCH ATTENTION

I finally let them get close enough together that Sadie could sniff her though, so maybe that will change. She didn't care for the prickles on her nose and quickly wandered off after that to chew on her duck toy.

Snack time for Henrietta, and today was bell pepper bits. Nom nom nom!

We can add those to the list of things that make her anoint along with the sugar snap peas from yesterday.

For anyone who doesn't know what anointing is, it's when your hedgehog plays pretend that it is both rabid and having a seizure by foaming at the mouth and then twitching all around trying to cover itself in said foam. 

It's a bit gross, but totally normal with new scents they go crazy for. It's also kind of freaky, and would have been terrifying if I hadn't read up on hedgies and known to expect it before getting one.

The foaming contortionist herself

TDF - updated Day 9 and Day 10

Okay, so this should have been my *real* progress shot for yesterday, since I went back for another hour of spinning last night



Good news, bad news. 
Bad news -  You know how I was thinking I had a 1oz spindle? Turns out my spindle is actually .89oz, so I ended up spinning more than I needed to on the second round.
Good news is that means I went over, instead of under. 



Even better news is that I'm ready to try plying!



I'm going to pretend Henrietta is cheering me on for such good progress
(but really this is just how she looks when she's eating)

~~~
Okay, on to Monday (day 10) - 

The yarn is all plied up, and daaaaaaaamn did that spindle get full! 

I started out wishing I had spun the singles for longer, but I honestly don't think I could have fit much more on there. 
I ended up with 30.5 yards of (basically) bulky weight. To go any further I would need thinner singles or a bigger spindle. I'm going to work towards consistently thinner singles. 

The yarn is currently hanging to dry. 
Tomorrow ... which autocorrected to 'To Oreos' is that a sign? Mmmmmm Oreos cough Moving on!
TOMORROW (there, I spelled it properly) is a rest day for the Tour, so no spinning scheduled. Doesn't mean I can't sneak an ounce in if I want, but my only plans are to twist my skein into a tidy little hank and do some knitting. 
Oh, and tackle Mt Laundry, but I'm pretty sure you don't care about that so much.

Tour de Fleece - Day Three

Today was a lesson in spinning with distractions, not that I'm complaining!

I had the daughter of a friend over to meet the Hedgie after work. Luckily mine has no idea it's supposed to be nocturnal, and so she was more than willing to be handled for a while before burrowing back into her little sack.
After that it was snoozing away, and while she was 'doing her art' I decided to do my spinning for the day. There was a lot of setting down and picking back up while I stopped to get crayons, ribbons, the fancy scissors etc etc so I have absolutely no idea how much time I spent actually spinning. I think all of that stop and go might have been why I was running a bit more thick and thin too, but not to the point it won't be knitable so I'm not too worried. Overall I'm happy with my progress

Tour de Fleece - Day One

It might have been night before I got to it, but I finished my first day of spinning for the Tour. 

I'm starting out with the 50/50 Merino/Tencel blend I bought from Greenwood Fiberworks. Here's my stash picture again - 

After about 20 minutes, this is where I ended up. 

Not that much there, I'm not exactly as fast spinner (as you can see) BUT it was fairly even except for a couple small spots. 

Now I know this blog is supposed to be all about crafts, but I wanted to share the reason I didn't get an earlier start on my spinning. 
(read: zomg you gotta let me show off like a proud pet momma!!!)
After I got done with work, we hopped in the car (for a 6hr+ round trip!) to go pick up the newest member of our little family - an incredibly cute Hedgie!!!!
Her name-to-be is under discussion, but her awesomeness is indisputable.

All this has made for a long day, but it was so totally worth it.
Now I'm going to go crash!